Williamson County gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee is set to pay $2.2 million to run ads on cable and satellite TV stations in Tennessee’s most populous areas.

The ad buy comes as several candidates prepare to ramp up their exposure on television stations in the coming months.

Although the spots are still months away from hitting the airwaves, Lee has reserved $1.1 million in ads to air on local broadcast stations in Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, the Tri-Cities area and throughout West Tennessee, including Memphis and Jackson, as well as Paducah, Kentucky.

The reservation also includes more than $1 million in ads to run on 15 cable stations, including the History Channel, ESPN, HGTV, AMC, A&E, USA, TBS and TNT.

The ad reservation, which comes from a summary by an analytics company obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee, was confirmed by a campaign adviser.

Chris Walker, the adviser, said the $2.2 million in reservations is one of "several (ad) buys" the campaign is making.

The reservation, which is merely a placeholder, limits the amount of available time for other campaigns to run their own ads.

The latest reservation brings Lee’s spending on television ads to $2.4 million, according to the advertising analytics company. The campaign previously declined to say how much it had spent on its first ad buy, which ran on cable and broadcast channels from Jan. 27 to Feb. 3.

An official with Black's campaign said Tuesday it has booked $1.45 million in ads to run on broadcast and cable stations in multiple markets in July alone.

House Speaker Beth Harwell, who also is seeking the Republican nomination, and former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, both Democrats, have yet to begin running their own television ads.

The reservation from Lee indicates his ads will not begin airing until mid-June and would end on Aug. 2, the day of the Republican primary election.

Reach Joel Ebert at jebert@tennessean.com or 615-772-1681 and on Twitter @joelebert29.